Rainwater harvesting systems for home irrigation

Rainwater harvesting has been around since the earliest civilizations. People - Romans, the Phoenicians, lots of people collected rainwater, that's how they got a lot of their drinking water. They got it from streams, of course, and wells, but they also got it from collecting rainwater in many parts of the world. Well, it's something we need to do again, because we have a lot of water that's been polluted. We have a lot of aquifer that we've drawn down, we've taken so much water out of the ground for our many different uses for agriculture and our lifestyles that we've depleted a lot of our ground water. So we need to recharge those aquifer and we need to collect our rainwater. Well poor man rainwater captures very easy. You just cut off a down spout coming off the eaves of your roof if you have rain gutters. If you have rain gutters it becomes quite easy. Off that rain gutter, it comes down to something that's vertical that's called a down spout. You cut that about half way and you put underneath that a rain barrel that you get. They have a rain barrel kits, you could just look online and go "rain barrel kit" and you buy one of those. They have plastic ones that are about 50 gallons. And then that rain when it comes off the roof, there's a little filter on top to keep off all the dirt out and you just clean that off occasionally. But that water that goes into that cistern and then with a spout at the bottom, fill up a watering can, go around and use that water. That's very cheap, very simple, poor man's rainwater capture. There's more expensive systems, more complicated systems that can save a lot of water, they're very easy to use. You can use them with a regular garden hose. And those include pumps, larger above ground or below ground cisterns, but rainwater capture is very important in a place like LA. My new home has a 10,000 gallon rainwater tank buried underground. I currently have a 550 gallon underground and a 50 gallon drum, and that's not enough, I need more that's why I put a 10,000 gallon underground cistern. It's important to know that the rainwater capture that you're going to do you can't use for drinking or showering. You might have birds on your roof, or squirrels on your roof or God help us, rodents or whatever, you don't want to use that for drinking, you could get very sick from it. But you can use it very easily and effectively for irrigation. Rainwater capture is for irrigation only and it's quite good for that.

Ed Begley, Jr.

Actor & Environmentalist

Inspired by the works of his Academy Award-winning father, Ed Begley Jr. became an actor. He first came to audiences’ attention for his portrayal of Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the long-running hit television series St. Elsewhere, for which he received six Emmy nominations. Since then, Ed has moved easily among feature, television and theatre projects.

Ed co-starred in the Woody Allen movie Whatever Works with Larry David, as well as the Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow film Pineapple Express, and a number of Christopher Guest films, including A Mighty Wind, Best In Show and For Your Consideration.

Other feature film credits include Batman Forever, The Accidental Tourist and The In-Laws.

On television, Ed just completed Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, an HBO movie with Christopher Plummer, Danny Glover and Frank Langella. He also starred in the HBO movie Recount with Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern, and appeared in recurring roles on Six Feet Under, Arrested Development and Boston Legal.

Rainwater harvesting has been around since the earliest civilizations. People - Romans, the Phoenicians, lots of people collected rainwater, that's how they got a lot of their drinking water. They got it from streams, of course, and wells, but they also got it from collecting rainwater in many parts of the world. Well, it's something we need to do again, because we have a lot of water that's been polluted. We have a lot of aquifer that we've drawn down, we've taken so much water out of the ground for our many different uses for agriculture and our lifestyles that we've depleted a lot of our ground water. So we need to recharge those aquifer and we need to collect our rainwater. Well poor man rainwater captures very easy. You just cut off a down spout coming off the eaves of your roof if you have rain gutters. If you have rain gutters it becomes quite easy. Off that rain gutter, it comes down to something that's vertical that's called a down spout. You cut that about half way and you put underneath that a rain barrel that you get. They have a rain barrel kits, you could just look online and go "rain barrel kit" and you buy one of those. They have plastic ones that are about 50 gallons. And then that rain when it comes off the roof, there's a little filter on top to keep off all the dirt out and you just clean that off occasionally. But that water that goes into that cistern and then with a spout at the bottom, fill up a watering can, go around and use that water. That's very cheap, very simple, poor man's rainwater capture. There's more expensive systems, more complicated systems that can save a lot of water, they're very easy to use. You can use them with a regular garden hose. And those include pumps, larger above ground or below ground cisterns, but rainwater capture is very important in a place like LA. My new home has a 10,000 gallon rainwater tank buried underground. I currently have a 550 gallon underground and a 50 gallon drum, and that's not enough, I need more that's why I put a 10,000 gallon underground cistern. It's important to know that the rainwater capture that you're going to do you can't use for drinking or showering. You might have birds on your roof, or squirrels on your roof or God help us, rodents or whatever, you don't want to use that for drinking, you could get very sick from it. But you can use it very easily and effectively for irrigation. Rainwater capture is for irrigation only and it's quite good for that.